Tag Archives: Interviews

We had a chat with Glasgow’s Gill Hatcher, cartoonist and co-creator of Team Girl Comic. Here she discusses her work, her influences, and the state of comics today.

What kind of comics did you grow up reading? What has most influenced your work, and what kind of work do you aspire to?

My first comic was DC Thomson’s Twinkle (“specially for little girls”), full of lovely stories about teddy bears and kittens. I then moved on to The Beano (The Bunty was way too boring), and when I discovered my local library had all the Tintin books they were all I wanted to read. And like everyone else in Scotland, The Broons and Oor Wullie annuals made an appearance every Christmas.

Although I mainly create short comic stories rather than strips, I’m influenced by Peanuts by Charles Schultz and Amy and Jordan by Mark Beyer: Schultz’s perfect simplicity and Beyer’s far from perfect attention to detail. I’m also a great admirer of Peter Bagge. A lot of my stories are influenced by wildlife, growing up and, if I’m being honest ‘The Sooty Show’- I still find a lot of things I laughed at as a kid funny today.
I guess I aspire to develop my own unique style- still working on that!

Sean Michael Wilson is a manga and comics writer who grew up in Edinburgh, and made the move to Japan where he has made it big in the manga world. He is the writer of a number of successful manga including ‘Yakuza Moon’ and ‘Hagakure’. He is the editor of the Harvey Award nominated anthology ‘AX: Alternative Manga’. We got in touch to ask him about his experiences as an international writer and editor. Here he discusses his work, and also announces a very exciting opportunity for Scotland based artists. Read on!

What comics did you grow up reading, and what has influenced you work most?

Like most kids in Scotland and the rest of the UK I grew up reading comics as a matter of course. It was Whizzer and Chips and Victor, ones like that at the start. Then, like a whole generation, I got the 2000AD benders! It was 2000AD that plunged me into the deep well of comics that I am yet to crawl back out of. And I don’t want to, there are many great wonders in it. But I also quickly got into even more mature comics, like Warrior and Escape. Interest in Superheroes was only a short concern for me, because the more indie stuff seemed so much more vital and moving. Of course Alan Moore, and also Eddie Campbell, Grant Morrison, Harvey Pekar, Joe Sacco. This is nothing new but Moore has deeply influenced me, as with many others. Not so much that you can see it in my writing, but in the stance of wanting to do work that matters to you, that has a high level of sophistication. The love of the medium as an artistic form of expression and exploration. Cheers big Al!

What was the draw of Japan for a Scottish born comic creator? How important is where you live and where you come from in making comics?

The draw of Japan is still a mystery to me in one way, although in another way it’s very simple: the lovely women! I came here with a Japanese girlfriend and settled. Apart from that I also thought it would be useful to be in Japan to make an effort to get into working in the manga industry. Which has proven to be the case, through giving it a good go in approaching editors and publishers here, and a bit of luck. But I often need to make it clear that I’m not an expert in manga, or in fact such a big fan. That sounds odd coming from someone who lives in Japan, works with Japanese artists and publishers everyday, and is the editor of one of the most respected manga anthologies yet to come out (AX), but its true! I’m too busy actually getting on with MAKING my books to have time to become an expert about manga in general. Paul Gravett is an expert. Ryan Holmsberg (who did the Ax bio section for us) is an expert. The only area of manga I am knowledgable in is the gekiga type, the mature, indie style. And even that is mostly because the Ax Japan editor, Asakawa-san, has told me about it.

Rodge Glass is the Glasgow based author of the critically acclaimed graphic novel Dougie’s War, which deals with a Scottish soldier returning from Afghanistan who faces his own very personal battle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. With his upcoming Edinburgh Book Festival discussion about War and Comics, I thought I’d catch up with him and discuss the making of Dougie’s War.

‘Dougie’s War’ is your first graphic novel. How did the project come about, and why did you decide to use the comics form?

Adrian Searle approached me with the idea. He is Head of Freight, a really smart graphic design company who have moved into publishing recently with Freight Books. Adrian gave me my first publication in 2004 and he’s supported my work ever since. He was working with various charities to build awareness of issues to do with PTSD and noticed that in my second novel, Hope for Newborns, the main characters were three generations of an army family where there was a great deal of inner mental conflict. In that book there was an unclear sense of who the goodies and the baddies were. Also, a struggle which was really more about the war after the war, rather than the war itself. So he asked me to write Dougie. At the time I’d just finished a huge draining project, Alasdair Gray: A Secretary’s Biography and wanted a complete change. Also, I wanted an excuse to read comics and throw myself into another world. I’m glad I did.